The mystery and drama surrounding 20th Century Fox's new Fantastic Four movie continues to grow.

Bleeding Cool reported on Thursday (Jan. 15) that Fantastic Four was headed back to Louisiana, where it was filmed last year, for reshoots. That, itself, was nothing unusual -- many large-scale pictures usually tack on a few extra days after principal photography is completed to add some shots, or sometimes even whole new scenes.

More Fantastic Four

What was unusual, however, was the reported (by Slashfilm and others) length of the reshoots -- a month, with local crews on call to work up to three months if necessary. A few days or even a week of reshoots is standard, but a month or more ... the last big film I remember needing that much additional time was World War Z, for which the production added seven weeks of filming to essentially craft an entirely new third act for the movie.

As this began to circulate online, however, Simon Kinberg -- a producer and screenwriter on the film -- got in touch with Latino Review with the following comment:

To confirm - Fantastic Four will be doing 3-4 days of additional photography with director Josh Trank and some key cast members. We are very excited about the film and can't wait for you to see what we've been up to. And you will be able to do that very soon as I can confirm here that the teaser will be on Kingsman in theaters February 13.

Three or four days of additional shooting sounds much more reasonable, but here's the thing: Can you necessarily believe a guy who is invested in halting any more bad buzz about the movie? He's not going to come out and say, "Yeah, this thing is a disaster, we need to fix a big chunk of it."

The news about the reshoots has included some other troubling info -- that Fox execs were not happy with the film, that it was a "mess," and that there had even been talk of removing Trank from the project. I have to caution that this is all very unofficial; no doubt some of it has been fueled by the fact that we have yet to see a single image from the movie, seven months away from its release date.

Badass Digest has heard that the reshoots will add some action to what is a "character-driven film," noting that the heroes don't really become the Fantastic Four until the end of the movie. Perhaps this isn't what Fox wanted or expected, but it may well be what the studio has to work with. They hired Trank for a different take on a superhero film, and now, seeing what it is, may have realized that it's not the movie they are prepared or know how to market to an already skeptical audience.

All we can do now is wait until Feb. 13, when that first teaser in front of Kingsman: The Secret Service gives us, finally, a look at what is already one of the most talked-about movies of 2015.

Do you think Fantastic Four is in a lot of trouble? Or are the rumors getting out of hand?